If you’re in the music industry at all, or even a music lover, you probably know that leaking albums is, well, not a great idea. Publications have been blacklisted and even shut down for the simple act of early filesharing, which is never a good move. For instance, Underoath’s comeback record Erase Me, released earlier this year. It goes without saying that, if that record had been leaked weeks before release, the offending party probably would have been in a serious amount of trouble – if not facing likely financial penalties. Luckily, no publication was dumb enough to pull off something so brazen and foolish, otherwise they probably wouldn’t exist anymore. Thankfully, most people aren’t in the business of inviting backlash like that into their lives. Word travels fast in this industry, to be certain.
While records hitting the Internet prior to release date is inevitable at this point, there’s much more than meets the eye when it comes to protecting your favorite band’s new release. Luckily, Haulix is here to revolutionize the protection of their valuable assets. A full-service software company, Haulix is in the business of making the distribution of pre-release albums seamless. We’re excited to be chatting with the company’s founder, Matt Brown, in a conversation you can find below. And to answer the question – yes, you can be sued for leaking the wrong album early. So don’t do it.
Check out what Haulix has to offer here.
Fall is always busy for music, but winter can be a lot slower. What does Haulix do differently when things slow down near the end of the year, if anything?
Yeah, even though it slows down this time of year, only about 1/5th of our customers hibernate their accounts, which is just temporarily shutting them down until the new year. It’s a good time for us to deploy new features, and so we stay busy.
A recent report claimed that the rate of digital piracy continues to rise in spite of services such as Spotify or Apple music gaining popularity. Why do you feel that is?
People can still purchase digital copies of an album and then all it takes, is sharing it with a friend and it’s leaked. There are browser plugins that can record streams too. That’s one reason why our watermarking technology is so powerful; even if someone holds a recording device up to their speakers while streaming a Haulix promo, our watermarks still get injected and that audio is then fingerprinted.
What are the penalties one can expect to receive if they leak a watermarked copy of an album?
We are just the middleman and so it’s completely the choice of the publicist or record label. It ranges from full blown legal action all the way down to just removing the leaker from their contact list and never sending them promotional music again.
Do you catch a lot of pirates? Maybe a better question is, are people foolish enough to leak music serviced through your system?
We catch about half a dozen leakers per month on average. Some months less than that.
What are the other ways music leaks online in 2018?
People will upload an album to YouTube and share it that way. There are private forums where leakers share the music they steal. It’s all over the place.
Haulix is a pretty seamless program overall. How long did it take for the concept of it to emerge?
I’m a computer programmer by trade and so it took a couple of us a few months to build the first version, which happened to suck by the way. We were just able to listen to feedback and fix issues quickly as they came up.
You also have a strong digital preference.Why do you feel education and user engagement play such an important role in what you do?
I believe a well rounded company also gives back. We host a popular job board and James on our team speaks around the country to younger people looking to get into the music industry. It feels good to help others out and be proactive in an industry that we love.
How do you plan to expand those efforts in the new year?
We are currently working on a new public website and several new features, one of which is 2 factor authentication for our customers. We are also putting out a new design for our blog and job board.
What separates Haulix from its contemporaries?
Software is partly art. We created something that’s easy to use and therefore it was widely accepted by techy and non-technical users. We have built up a lot of traction over the years and so a new competitor has a large uphill battle in earning that same traction when we already have a favorable stance.
And no doubt, we offer superior customer support. We know most of our customers by first name and we take pride in helping people within 10-20 minutes of receiving their support request. There’s value in a company who takes care of their customers and lots of other companies/competitors out there are severely lacking in that area.
Was there ever a point in time where getting Haulix off the ground made you feel discouraged?
Yeah, in the beginning you feel all alone by yourself trying to build something that’s nothing more than an idea and you don’t know if it’s going to turn into something or fail. I think that’s why so many people are afraid to dive into the deep end and start a business. They are afraid of failing. Failure does hurt and it sucks investing your blood and sweat into something only to have it not take off. If it does take off though, it’s the best feeling in the world!
You exist in a niche market where the competition can differ greatly from your service. Where do you find inspiration for your next innovation?
I purposely don’t watch our competitors too closely. I want my overall vision to stay organic and not get corrupted by features or services they offer. Rather, I get inspiration from listening to feedback from our current roster of customers.
You have a relatively small team. What are the pros and cons of keeping your team small?
Our small team has always been able to handle the workload and so I haven’t felt the need to hire more people. Even though I own the company, I still help out with customer support, I do invoicing and build new features with other developers on the team; I’m not above cleaning the toilets so to speak.
One con, is that a larger prospective customer might not choose our services just because we appear too small. In reality though, that’s bullshit and shouldn’t matter. If I owned a bar, I’d have a much larger staff of people. Our company runs in the Microsoft Cloud, and so money usually spent on staff, is invested into server infrastructure.
Do you have any advice for entrepreneurs like myself who may be hoping to ‘disrupt’ the digital music space?
You have to just figure out what you want to do and commit. There’s always going to be uncertainty but you’ll never know until you actually execute and try things out in the real world. You might start going down one path and come up with your magical idea a few months down the road. You then pivot and start a new path. The key, is actually doing something and not waiting for some magical idea.
